For rodent pups, bonding with mom isn't hard-wired in the womb. It develops over the first few weeks of life, which is achieved by their maturing sense of smell, possibly allowing these mammals a survival advantage by learning to identify mother, siblings, and home. Blending electrophysiological, biochemical and behavioral experiments, researchers demonstrated that neurons in the noses of mice mature after birth.

For rodent pups, bonding with mom isn't hard-wired in the womb. It develops over the first few weeks of life, which is achieved by their maturing sense of smell, possibly allowing these mammals a survival advantage by learning to identify mother, siblings, and home.

Related Articles

Blended electrophysiological, biochemical, and behavioral experiments, Minghong Ma, PhD, an associate Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, led a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. With students Anderson Lee and Jiwei He, she demonstrated that neurons in the noses of mice mature after birth.

Using patch-clamping -- a technique that measures electrical signals at the cellular level -- Ma's team found that between birth and day 30 of development, normal neurons become six times more sensitive to their sibling's scent, in this case, a fragrance called lyral. In addition, the mice transition from a relative indiscriminate response to different odors to being highly attuned to one specific smell. They also respond to that specific odor with a faster speed over time.

The olfactory marker protein (OMP) likely mediates this developmental maturation. In olfactory sensory neurons lacking OMPs, response fails to speed up over 30 days as compared to normal neurons. The authors suggest this could be due to altered intracellular communication, since loss of the protein is associated with decreased phosphorylation of an associated enzyme called adenylate cyclase, a key player in the chemical signaling underlying the sense of smell.

The team also used a novel behavioral assay to illustrate one consequence of mistakes in this cellular maturation process. Normal mouse pups, given the choice between their mother and an unrelated, lactating female, will choose to huddle with or suckle their mother 78 percent of the time. But in the absence of OMP, newborn mice fail to make that distinction.

According to Ma, the maturation of olfaction in early development could offer animals that need nursing and care for a long time before maturing (altricial species, including some mammals) a survival advantage. Rather than being hard-wired at birth, Ma says, they learn to identify their surroundings and their family. "They actually learn to find their mother, home, and siblings, and to stay alive," she says. But whether the same is true of human infants, of course, remains an open question.

One key question yet to be addressed, Ma says, is the mechanism underlying this olfactory tuning process. How, for instance, do the cells develop a faster response speed? How do they get so good at focusing on just one odorant to the exclusion of all others? And can this process be modulated by early experience? The answers to those questions, she says, could possibly provide tools to influence the bonding between mother and child in early development, and even promote social interactions in autistic children.

The article was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health.

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. (2011, March 13). Mouse nose nerve cells mature after birth, allowing bonding, recognition with mother. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 3, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110311165223.htm

More From ScienceDaily

More Mind & Brain News

Featured Research

Mar. 3, 2015 — No significant change in home habits of smokers have been observed in the aftermath of a ban on smoking in public spaces, researchers report. Greater inspiration to kick the habit likely comes from ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Heart function has been associated with the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease through a new study. Participants with decreased heart function, measured by cardiac index, were two to ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Children of recently separated or divorced families are likelier to drink sugar-sweetened beverages than children in families where the parents are married, putting them at higher risk for obesity ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Why do people shake hands? A new study suggests one of the reasons for this ancient custom may be to check out each other's odors. Even if we are not consciously aware of this, handshaking may ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — It appears that stress markers in unemployed people can be found, independent of smoking, alcohol consumption and overweight/obesity. Results from a study suggest that long-term unemployment may be ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Doctors write millions of prescriptions a year for drugs to calm the behavior of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. But non-drug approaches actually work better, and carry ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Briefly counseling college students on the dangers of binge drinking is effective in lowering heavy drinking levels among many students, but only temporarily. Three out of four will be right back ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Loneliness brought about by the death of a spouse can trigger a wider network of depression-like symptoms, a study has found, but authors suggest that doctors are often too quick to attribute these ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Family Based Interpersonal Psychotherapy (FB-IPT) is more effective in treating preadolescent children with depression compared to child-centered therapy (CCT), a recent study has found. ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Everyone worries about losing their memory as they grow older—memory loss remains one of the most common complaints of the elderly. But the molecular reasons behind the processes remain unclear, ... full story

Related Stories

Oct. 4, 2012 — For newborn mice to suckle for the very first time and survive, they depend on a signature blend of scents that is unique to their mothers. The findings reveal that mom's natural perfume ... full story

Nov. 10, 2011 — As a fetus grows, it's constantly getting messages from its mother. It's not just hearing her heartbeat and whatever music she might play to her belly; it also gets chemical signals through ... full story

Oct. 24, 2011 — Instinctive mothering behavior towards care of newborns has long been recognized as a phenomenon in humans and animals, but now research has shown that motherhood is associated with the acquisition ... full story

June 17, 2010 — Are we born with an innate sense of direction, or is it learned? Research from Norway suggests that the brain comes hard-wired with working navigational neurons. While these neurons -- head direction ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.